Midnighters #1: The Secret Hour [Paperback]

I greatly enjoyed reading The Midnighters: The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld, the first in the trilogy. It is a Young Adult novel, but is great for all ages and is built around very creative ideas. Everyone is sure to enjoy this YA fantasy that has suspense, some action, and some romance.

In Bixby, Oklahoma, there is a 25th hour that occurs at midnight. Everyone is frozen in their spots and technology stops working (ie. electricity, cars). Only the Midnighters are able to live through that hour, along side the creatures of the dark (darklings). Each Midnighter possesses their own special ability.

Jessica Day is new in town, recently having moved from Chicago. However, she is no ordinary newcomer, she is a Midnighter, but not a normal Midnighter either. With her arrival into town, the darklings start behaving abnormally in the secret hour.

What is Jessica's talent at midnight? Why are darklings behaving abnormally? Discover the secrets of Bixby and the rules of midnight.

Scott Westerfeld has done a marvelous job by mixing fantasy,mystery,science fiction and romance concisely. Such an exclusive and original story can only be created by a master-mind.
"Midnighters" as the title suggests is about group of 5 teenagers who roam Bixby, Oklahoma at the stroke of midnight for a WHOLE HOUR, which is the 25th hour exclusive to only them 5 while the entire Bixby is frozen stiffs. However,In this 25th hour, they are not alone! Darklings, ancient creatures whose mere existence goes back to the Stone Ages roam around freely, but they usually don't bother anyone;until Jessica Day moves to town. Apart from being a Midnighter,there is something special about Jessica that even the other four midnighters can not seem to wrap their minds around.
The darklings want her DEAD and they will surpass all boundaries to have her dead. Each Midnighter possesses a power (mindcasting,seer,polymath,flying) and then there is Jessica whose power is still unknown but interesting enough to send the scary and powerful darklings into a frenzy.
This book was like X-men with a whole new twist. Of course there was romance involved. No YA book is good without romance. Even though romance was not the central plot of this story, it was still dominant to give readers "awe" moments.
This books is very well-written with good character development. The POV of this book is very interesting because its told in a third-person, but in every chapter the narrator changes. This way you get a chance to get inside ALL midnighters heads and see the world from their vision. I loved how Scott did so flawlessly. At the end of each chapter, there is a symbol which belongs to each midnighter letting the reader know who was narrating a specific chapter.
This is the first book of the trilogy, so many would expect the ending to be a major cliff-hanger. I can gladly reassure you that this book is in no way a cliff-hanger. THANK GOD! It can be read as a stand-alone, although i would recommend to continue the trilogy since it only gets better and more questions will be answered.
Recommended to all YA lovers of fantasy,mystery,science fiction and romance.

Humans that are born at the stroke of midnight have the ability to access the secret 25th hour of the day. Wouldn't you like the extra hour? I know I would.

The promise that out there is something more than what we see and feel is really interesting and will definitely be appealing to those who like sci-fi books.

This is my first sci-fi book so it was kind of hard to get into but once that was over and I got to know the characters I found myself trying to find ways for the characters to escape..... not saying! J

The truth is these series have really stuck with me and days after I read them I was thinking about them. It has enough science stuff for those of you that are interested to know how things happened, like me, and it was simple enough for those who don't want to have a headache from the entire information overflow.

The characters were really unique and each one of them had a different talent. They call themselves Midnighters since they are the only humans that live in the secret hour but not for long because something dark out there wants them. These creatures, called daklings, are the other things that live or better exist at the secret hour. They only live at the 25th hour and that's a relief because they are after Jessica. But she has the help of 4 other Midnighters, all with special talents.

The writing was in third person narrative which is my favourite. A plus! You will find yourself turning the pages fast and eager to see what happens next.
I only gave it 2 stars because it was hard for me to get into and because there wasn't the love story I wanted to see but let me tell you the next books are better. This is the kind of series that gets better as it goes. So read it and then go for the next one!